Adult Bullies (An Interruption in the School Discusson)

A moment for clarification:
I am not referring to any particular individuals. I purposefully stayed out of the negative threads and posts and sites and whatever. I was told by others about some content and that is about what I speak.

FIRST, I am a firm believer in the 1st amendment. I do believe that people have the right to say what they want to say. Sometimes I despise what is being said but I defend the right to say it.

What I was hurt by, in the Francisco case was this:

None of us knows what has happened for sure. It could be that this is an elaborate hoax or it could be a legitimate sad mystery.

Different people have different viewpoints.

I also staunchly believe in the principle of our democracy that every person is innocent until proven guilty. As a person who is currently fighting an administrative charge for which I am truly innocent I know first hand how devastating it is to be "convicted" by people who know nothing of which they speak.

At stake here is more than reputation. There are people with feelings and who are currently (as far as anyone has reported as fact) devastated at a tragic loss. What happens with regard to statements can have a lifelong impact on the family.

There are many ways that opinions can be stated including compassionate and hateful.

The truth is that none of us knows for sure, including the people that currently support the family. If it turns out that there is a conspiracy then I will join everyone in their condemnation of Christine and those who were complicit in the falsification of this event. BUT, until the truth is known, IMO, it is much more civilized and humane to temper what we say with compassion knowing that whatever side you currently support, could be wrong.

Words once spoken...disappear into the air. Posted on line will live forever.

To me, it's a question of on which side one wishes to fall in error. Compassion or suspicion and hate.

It saddens me greatly, to the point of raging anger at times, when adults choose to bully. Sometimes it seems we throw the term "adult" around too loosely when we use it to define ourselves and others. Adult should be a title that is earned, not given, upon reaching a certain age.

In my opinion, it should be earned by the measure of our hearts and manners. How kindly or respectfully do we treat others despite the ways in which they may differ from us? I'm not talking about "toleration" which is another term that I despise. I'm talking about genuine acceptance and a certain blindness to differences (in terms of prejudices).

Recently, a fellow Etsy member suffered a terrific and tragic loss when her husband was suddenly missing without a trace. This was a family with happily married parents, 2 wonderful children and another child on the way. Now it's a family that doesn't include a beloved father because he has been replaced by an inconceivable void as his whereabouts is still undetermined.

Within hours of learning of these circumstances, I became aware that the family was in dire need of some financial support as money was needed to provide search materials-fliers and posters, reward money and more. I posted a plea to the overwhelmingly supportive Etsy "Community" to aid me in an attempt to raise some monetary donations to assist this family in their search.

What ensued was beyond my imagination! People from all over the word and the U.S. gave with such an unselfishness and with such caring that I was completely overwhelmed. Here are hundreds of people who have never met banding together with such support, financial and emotional, that it was worthy of awe.

Unfortunately, there was also a disheartening, quite unexpected backlash from many other Etsy members who openly mocked the threads of support, condemned the number of posts in the same threads (despite some of the totally silly threads that have reach well beyond 4000 but are not viewed with disdain).

There were outside blogs and posts accusing the family of "staging" the disappearance in some kind of twisted sick publicity and money raising plot, the father of running off, and so many other dishonorable actions. People were not at all shy of their condemnations and accusations which did reach the family of the missing husband and father and caused further deep hurt, humiliation and anguish to an already intolerable situation. People continued the onslaught despite the pleas of others to respect the plight of the family and others who so gracefully supported them in many different ways. For some reason, they found the need to pound away until the grieving wife fled from her Internet support and went into hiding to shield herself from the flaming daggers that were being thrust at her.

What else can you call the reactions of these detractors? Bullying doesn't seem to be a strong enough tag but bullying is certainly what it was from these supposed "adults". Mean, hateful, cruel and insidious bullying.

One wonders if these are taller versions of the playground tormentors-the kids who made the lives of the "different" kids a living hell driving some to kill others and some to kill themselves. Those who created a life of shame, humiliation and sadness for others who simply did not deserve it.

As I write, a term comes to me that is stronger than "bully". The word is "terrorist". As children the responsibility of teaching why bullying is a horrific act falls upon all of us adults to set examples, educate and be positive role models of behavior. Children have to learn hatred and discrimination and they learn it at the feet of their environment and "adults" within it. Children are not born hating.

I hope children in this instance were watching all of the caring loving and kind people who gave what they could of money and emotional support often sacrificing something of their lives to do so. I hope they were unable to see the hate, condemnation and torture from the other few who, for some reason, needed to make an untenable situation even worse.

How should adults react to bullying? What is your story?